Janice Dean speaks with USO Northeast Regional President Rebecca Parkes about the kickoff of 'Fleet Week' and the Parade of Ships in NYC.
High above the clouds on January 31, 1944, Second Lieutenant James Galliher was seated in the cramped front of his B-24 Liberator as it approached Udine, Italy. A 27-year-old assigned to the 717th Bomb Squadron of the 449th Bombardment Group, his unit’s target was the German airbase at Aviano.
Galliher’s mission was part of the Army Air Force’s strategic bombing campaign over Europe, which began in 1943. And while it was beginning to bear fruit, it had come at a staggering cost. By the Second World War’s end, some 88,000 American airmen would be lost, indicating a particularly devastating casualty rate.
The bright skies above Aviano soon turned to a hell of black aerial bursts as German flak batteries bombarded the 717th’s formation. Since the start of the campaign, the bombing raids had intensified and the Army Air Force had begun to lose more crews to anti-aircraft fire. The raid on Aviano would be no different.
ON THIS MEMORIAL DAY, I WANT MY GRANDSON TO KNOW ABOUT A MEDAL OF HONOR WINNER WHO SACRIFICED AND........© Fox News